Welcome to Wonderland #4

by Chris Grabenstein

  “Wow,” said Gloria as we both gawked at the sign, with all its magical promises. “I wonder if Dad’s in there reporting for WTSP.”

  “Let’s go find out,” I suggested.

  We grabbed our backpacks and headed up the aisle.

  “This isn’t your stop, kids,” said the driver, a nice lady named Ms. Terbock, who loves our Wonder-land shampoo because it smells like coconuts mixed with limes. (I give Ms. Terbock a ton of the tiny bottles on special holidays I make up during the school year, such as National Drive a Bunch of Kids to School Day.)

  “We want to see if my dad’s inside,” said Gloria.

  Ms. Terbock swung open the door for the kids who usually hopped off at that stop.

  “Ooh, your father is soooo handsome,” she said, practically swooning. “You know, I never enjoyed sports until your father came to town. I still don’t. But I love him!”

  Gloria laughed.

  “See you tomorrow, Ms. Terbock,” I said. “It’s National Hair Conditioner Day!”

  “Sweet!”

  Gloria and I bounded down the stairs. The letters on the Fun Castle’s video screen flipped and spun into a sparkling message: Welcome to St. Pete Beach’s New Home for Fun in the Sun.

  Huh.

  I figured that meant the Wonderland was its old home.

  “Hey, ho, kiddos!” said a high-school-aged guy in khaki shorts and a polo shirt.

  He and a girl were passing out slick brochures in the Fun Castle parking lot.

  “If you’re looking for fun in the sun, you’re in the right spot!” said the girl. “Sir Laughsalot welcomes you to the grand opening of his all-new, all-awesome, all-fun Fun Castle!”

  The two cheery greeters had smiles brighter than Mr. Ortega’s, and his is a three-hundred-watter. Behind them, a goofy guy in an Alligator King costume was doing herky-jerky dance moves like a baseball team mascot. I figured he was Sir Laughsalot. I wondered if he knew the Dolphin King.

  “Um, do you know who’s here from WTSP?” asked Gloria.

  “The one and only super-fun Manny Ortega!” said the chipper girl. “We swapped whitening-strip tips.”

  Gloria rolled her eyes. “Of course you did.”

  “We’re from the Wonderland Motel,” I said. “Three blocks down Gulf Boulevard.”

  “The Wonderland?” said the guy, shaking his head and frowning. “Ouch. That’s the motel where the staff steals stuff, right?”

  “Wrong. They were framed. We were framed.”

  I was going to give him a blow-by-blow of everything that had happened during what I like to call the Sandapalooza Shake-Up, but I could tell the guy wasn’t paying attention.

  So I changed the subject. “How much does it cost to go in and take a look around?”

  “Nada,” said the girl, her smile widening. “That’s Spanish for ‘nothing’!”

  “We know,” said Gloria. “Mi abuelo es de Cuba.”

  The girl stared blankly at Gloria for a few seconds. Then she said, “Awesome!”

  “Have fun, kiddos!” said the guy.

  “Because at the Fun Castle,” said the girl, “fun is job one!”

  “You’re supposed to say, ‘Fun in the sun is job one,’ ” whispered her partner.

  “But the building has a roof,” the girl whispered back. “There isn’t any sun inside.”

  “So?” said the guy through clenched teeth. “It’s in the manual. Stay on script, Heather, or Bradley will fire you so fast—”

  “Don’t worry about me, Todd. Worry about you.”

  “What?”

  “Your polo shirt is untucked! Bradley hates an untucked polo….”

  They both seemed super tense.

  While Todd hurriedly tucked in his shirt, Gloria and I slipped away. But I couldn’t stop thinking about what Todd had just said.

  Recently my family’s motel had (barely) survived what business wizards like Gloria call a “public relations disaster.” Nobody on our staff had done anything wrong, but some people were saying they had—loudly—so others figured it had to be true.

  Once our housekeepers and cook were cleared, we began slowly crawling back into the black. That meant we were almost making money again.

  But I knew the truth: the Wonderland needed another major boost. Some kind of gimmick or publicity stunt big enough to make everybody forget every bad thing they’d ever heard on the radio or read about us online.

  If we didn’t get that soon, our days of fun in the sun would be done.

  “Hey, ho, kiddos!” chirped another cheery guy in a polo shirt and khaki shorts when we entered the Fun Castle.

  His name tag ID’d him as Bradley. His shirt was tucked in. Tight.

  I figured he was the boss, the one Todd and Heather were so afraid of. Bradley was in his twenties and extremely buff. It looked like he bench-pressed benches. The kind made out of concrete.

  The Fun Castle was dark and noisy. Bells dinged. Kids whooted. Wooden balls clacked. Video games warbled. Thumping music pumped out of ceiling speakers.

  “Welcome to the all-new, all-fun Fun Castle!” our inside greeter shouted. “I’m Bradley, the master funmeister here. It’s my job to make sure you kiddos have the most fun under the sun.”

  “But there’s a roof,” said Gloria, pointing toward the ceiling. “There’s no sun.”

  “Hey, little girl,” Bradley said with a sly wink, “who says you need sun to spread a little funshine?”

  “First,” said Gloria, “I’m not a little girl. Second, funshine isn’t a word.”

  “You’re right,” said Bradley, still smiling (the way an alligator does before it chomps you in the butt). “Funshine is more of a feeling! Especially when you win big!”

  “Always remember one thing, kiddos,” said Bradley. “Life’s more fun after you’ve won. Hey, if you’re not a winner, you’re a loser—am I right?”

  Gloria ignored him. She was looking for her dad.

  “Is Manny Ortega still here?” she asked.

  “Just left. You a fan?”

  “Yes. I’m also his daughter.”

  Bradley raised his hand to slap her a high five. “Kudos on that, kiddo!”

  Gloria left him hanging.

  “Come on, P.T.,” she said. “Let’s head for home. I forgot to put on my funblock this morning. I think I’m getting a really bad case of funburn.”

  We left without rolling a single wooden ball up a Skee-Ball ramp or checking out the Mega Mini indoor golf course.

  Gloria didn’t say a word as we crossed the parking lot and hit the sidewalk. I could tell she was doing some serious thinking. Finally, when we were maybe a block away from the Wonderland, she stopped in her tracks and turned to face me.

  “We need to up our game, P.T.,” she said. “Bigly.”

  “What we need is a growth hack,” said Gloria as we headed for the Wonderland lobby to grab something cold to drink.

  That’s another great thing about living in a motel. The lobby’s basically my living room except we have vending machines instead of fancy furniture with vinyl slipcovers.

  “What’s a growth hack?” I asked. “Is it like a growth spurt? I grew three inches this year. Grandpa says it’s all the bologna he feeds me.”

  “A growth hack, P.T., is a process of rapid experimentation across marketing channels to identify the most effective ways to grow a business.”

  “Riiiight,” I said, because I still had no idea what she was talking about.

  I figured it was probably something pretty good, though. Ever since Gloria and her dad had checked in, she’d been helping me come up with moneymaking schemes to keep the Wonderland afloat. Being an entrepreneur is sort of her hobby. She even plays the stock market, but only on paper. Last week, her make-believe portfolio was worth “a bajillion
dollars and change.”

  If Gloria Ortega thought “growth hacking” was a good idea, I was all for it, whatever it was.

  “Net-net, P.T.,” she continued, “we need to generate new buzz and excitement around the Wonderland brand. Having the Twittleham Tiara on display gave us a nice bump, but now it’s moved on to Cinderella Castle at Disney World.”

  I put my finger to my lips and urged Gloria to “ix-nay on the isney-Day,” because I could see Grandpa in the lobby. My grandfather doesn’t really like Disney World, because way back in 1970, Grandpa opened the Wonderland as a small family-run beachfront attraction known as Walt Wilkie’s Wonder World.

  Then, in 1971, the other Walt opened Disney World over in Orlando.

  “The seventies were a great decade, P.T.,” Grandpa always says. “For exactly one year.”

  Grandpa bopped the vending machine button that would deliver him a frosty can of Dr. Brown’s Cel-Ray soda. Yes, it tastes like carbonated celery juice.

  We could also see Gloria’s dad in the lobby. He was chatting with my mom.

  I figured Mr. Ortega had swung by the motel after he wrapped up shooting his Fun Castle report. He probably needed to repolish his teeth.

  By the way, I think my mom has something in common with our school bus driver: a serious crush on Mr. Ortega.

  What does my father think about my mom flirting with the most handsome sportscaster on Tampa Bay TV?

  Hard to say. Because I’ve never met the guy. I mean my father, not Mr. Ortega.

  My dad left town before I was even born, and as far as I can tell, he’s never come back.

  But maybe someday he will.

  Especially if Gloria and I come up with a super-incredible growth hack. Because when you’re a big success, everybody wants to be your family.

  Bells tinkled overhead as Gloria and I breezed through the lobby door.

  “Hi, guys!” I said.

  Mom and Mr. Ortega seemed to be in the middle of a super-serious conversation. I noticed a stack of glossy Fun Castle brochures sitting on the counter. Grandpa was flipping through them with one hand and holding a can of Dr. Brown’s Cel-Ray soda in the other.

  Grandpa belched. “Welcome home, kids,” he said when his gas was all gone.

  “Help yourself to soda, guys,” said Mom.

  She handed us a pair of dollar bills to feed into the vending machine’s money-slurping slot.

  “So, what do you think, Wanda?” Mr. Ortega asked Mom, picking up where they’d left off. “If I keep doing puff pieces like this feature about the Fun Castle, will the big dogs at ESPN ever take me seriously?”

  Working for ESPN had always been Mr. Ortega’s dream. It was why he’d kept moving around, hopping from channel to channel, city to city. He really wanted to impress whoever hired the on-air talent for the “Worldwide Leader in Sports.”

  “Well, Manny,” said Mom, “I know I take you seriously. I even liked your story about the synchronized-swimming team at the Sarasota Senior Center.”

  “I appreciate that, Wanda. But I don’t think I’m hitting it out of the park on a consistent basis.”

  Grandpa belched again.

  This time the whole lobby smelled like salad that should’ve been refrigerated a month earlier.

  “The Fun Castle looked pretty cool,” I told Mr. Ortega, fanning the stinky air. “Gloria and I checked it out on the way home from school. Should make a good story.”

  “A lot of our guests went up there today,” added Mom. “Gave them something to do during the day.”

  “What?” said Grandpa. “There’s plenty to do here!”

  “Well,” I said, “I wasn’t here to entertain them. Now, if you guys would just let me drop out of middle school…”

  Mom arched an eyebrow unhappily. “Phineas Taylor Wilkie?”

  Yep. Just like Mr. Frumpkes.

  “So who’s hungry?” blurted Grandpa. “Besides me, of course.”

  “I could eat,” I said.

  “Me too,” said Mom, Gloria, and Mr. Ortega.

  So we traipsed around back to the Banana Shack to see what Jimbo had on the grill.

  Jimbo’s our chef.

  He’s also the guy I used to think was my dad.

  Jimbo is what they call a Parrothead.

  That means he loves the steel-drumming, guitar-strumming music of Jimmy Buffett. Jimbo is so laid-back I think he can sleep standing up.

  Mom first met Jimbo when they worked together at a restaurant over in Orlando twelve or thirteen years ago. And since I’m twelve years old, that’s just about all it took for me to decide that Jimbo was my dad.

  Of course, I was wrong.

  “Your mom and I are just good friends, man,” Jimbo told me when I flat out asked him if he was my father. “Always have been. Always will be. So you want to, like, catch a wave later, man?”

  That was basically the end of that.

  Jimbo’s Surf Monkey burgers are fantastic. And he’s elevated the Chunky Funky Monkey grilled cream cheese sandwich Gloria and I invented to new heights. (Who knew it needed a scoop of Cap’n Crunch cereal on top?)

  Gloria and I grabbed stools at the bar. Mom, Mr. Ortega, and Grandpa shared a table.

  “How’s the stock market treating you, man?” Jimbo asked Gloria, even though she’s a girl, because he calls everybody man.

  “Fantastic,” said Gloria. “On paper, anyway. The stocks I picked for my pretend portfolio are way up.”

  “Congratulations, man.”

  “Thank you,” said Gloria. “But it’s just pretend. It’s not real.”

  “Maybe you should make it real,” I suggested. “Just invest some real money in some real stocks.”

  “It’s illegal, P.T. To purchase stocks on my own in the state of Florida, I’m pretty sure I need to be eighteen.”

  “Maybe your dad could do it for you,” I told her. “Give him the money and let him buy the stocks.”

  “I’m kind of in a cash-poor position,” said Gloria.

  It was true. All the money we’d made selling souvenirs and putting on shows had gone straight into the Wonderland’s bank account.

  “Well,” said Jimbo, “maybe your dad could do you a solid and front you. Give you what my aunt Lucille used to call a grubstake.”

  “Is that some sort of meat?” I asked.

  “I don’t think so,” said Jimbo. “But I’d need to check my meat encyclopedia to be sure.”

  “A grubstake,” explained Gloria, “is money furnished to an enterprise in return for a share of the resulting profits.”

  “There you go,” said Jimbo. “That’s probably what Aunt Lucille was talking about. Sometimes, with her, you couldn’t really tell….”

  “Your dad has a steady salary at WTSP,” I said. “Maybe he could—”

  Just then Mr. Ortega sprang up and started doing some kind of raise-the-roof, potato-masher end-zone dance.

  “Yesssss!” he shouted, showing Mom a text message on his phone. “There’s an opening at ESPN!”

  “That’s great news, Manny,” said Grandpa.

  “Thanks, Walt,” said Mr. Ortega. “But I don’t have the job. Just a chance to audition for it. I’m going to need to polish up my demo reel. Invest in a new wardrobe. Maybe hire an audition coach. I might need new veneers for my teeth.” He checked out his smile’s reflection in a spoon. “Biff Billington has new veneers.”

  “Who’s Biff Billington?” asked Grandpa.

  “My main competition. Does the six o’clock sports out of Philly. The guy has one heckuva smile.”

  Grandpa shrugged. “You need new teeth, Manny, you can borrow mine. They’re not even a year old….”

  He started reaching into his mouth. Mr. O quickly held up his hand.

  “That’s okay, Walt,” said Mr
. Ortega. “I’ll call my tooth man. It’ll definitely dent the ol’ wallet, but maybe we can work out a payment plan.”

  I heard Gloria sigh beside me.

  No way was she going to be able to borrow money from her dad to finance a real stock portfolio. Anything extra he might’ve had would now be going into his ESPN audition.

  And even shinier teeth.

  On Saturday, Gloria and I were hanging out at the Wonderland, playing a round of miniature golf on the Stinky Beard Putt-Putt course with our pals Bruce Brandow and Jack Alberto from school.

  We were on hole six, the python.

  “Aim at the right fang,” said Jack, sounding sort of bored, “carom off the cheek, down the tube, out the back, bank off the tail curl, hole in one.”

  “But remember,” I said, “this is no ordinary python.”

  “We know,” said Bruce. “His name is Monty.”

  “And he came to earth on a flying saucer,” said Jack.

  “Because he likes Cheetos,” said Bruce.

  “Because he’s curly,” added Jack with a yawn. “Like a Cheeto.”

  I just smiled slightly. I figured I needed some new material. Maybe Bruce and Jack had both heard my statuary stories one too many times.

  “Well played, Jack,” said Gloria, keeping score on a pad with a stubby pencil. “You scored a hole in one.”

  “We all did,” said Bruce.

  “Because we’ve all played this course like fifteen million times,” added Jack.

  Just then, an airplane towing a banner advertising the Fun Castle’s Mega Mini indoor golf course puttered across the sky.